The watermelon coloured oval ruby zoisite gemstone cabochon shown here is 28mm long. It is available to be handcrafted into a custom made ring or pendant for you.
First discovered in 1954 in Tanzania, Ruby zoisite is a composite of green zoisite with black tschermakite and ruby crystals. It is also known as anyolite, which comes from the word for “green” in the native language of the Masai tribe.
Ruby Zoisite is believed to overcome laziness. It is thought to enhance fertility and to help with diseases of the reproductive system. It is said to encourage you to be an individual and to stimulate creativity.
The lush oval ruby zoisite gemstone cabochon shown here is 20mm long. It is available to be handcrafted into a custom made ring or pendant for you.
First discovered in 1954 in Tanzania, Ruby zoisite is a composite of green zoisite with black tschermakite and ruby crystals. It is also known as anyolite, which comes from the word for “green” in the native language of the Masai tribe.
Ruby Zoisite is believed to overcome laziness. It is thought to enhance fertility and to help with diseases of the reproductive system. It is said to encourage you to be an individual and to stimulate creativity.
The stunning lapis lazuli gemstone cabochon shown here is 38mm long. It is available to be handcrafted into a custom made ring or pendant for you.
Lapis Lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan for over 6,000 years. It is believed to be good for communications and good judgement, for enhancing memory, and to attract success.
The beautiful opal gumdrop gemstone cabochon shown here is 11mm diameter. It is available to be handcrafted into a custom made ring or pendant for you. This cabochon is from Mexico.
The amazing turritella fossil gemstone cabochon shown here is 33mm by 22mm long. It is available to be handcrafted into a custom made ring or pendant for you.
Turritella is a genus of medium-sized sea snails which have tightly coiled shells in the shape of an elongated cone.
At the request of a customer, I recently created this double sided pendant.
This pendant depicts the element of metal, in both Chinese writing and Feng Shui symbolism. It was really great to create – sometimes everything just goes together totally smoothly!
In order to create rings that fit my lovely customers, I need to know their ring size. I’ve written a post about measuring your own ring size, however the best way of finding out your ring size is to have your finger measured at a jewellers – this is the easiest and most accurate way of fitting a ring.
Above you can see my ring sizing gauges. The rings are for measuring fingers, and are graded in sizes – here in Australia we use letters of the alphabet (which are followed by numbers), so these go from size H up to Z, and then on from 1 to 6. The stick is for measuring the size of rings, and has different measurements, including the alphabet system, millimetres, and US sizing.
If you’re in Brisbane, I’m always happy to measure you up for one of my custom made rings!
Koalas are in danger. Koalas in the wild face a series of threats to their continued survival mostly stemming from destruction of their habitat for human uses and associated threats like cars, dogs and disease.
The mission of the Australian Koala Foundation is to diminish the threat to the survival of koalas and to increase global consciousness and to reverse the rapid degeneration of all the world’s flora and fauna.
I’ll be donating 10% of all The Silver Forge sales for August to this worthy cause, so if you can, get behind it and treat yourself to something lovely from my shop at the same time!
When I was younger, I had no idea that I had any artistic talent. In fact I thought I was devoid of it – that being able to ‘do art’ was something you were born with, and I wasn’t. It took me a long time to recognise some things about art.
One of the things that started me thinking I had an artistic bone in my body was when my son encouraged me to have a go at painting his Warhammer miniatures. (Warhammer, you ask? Picture toy soldiers meet Dungeons and Dragons meets chess.) These guys come as little grey metal or plastic pieces (the standard ones are around 5cm high), which you have to glue together and – paint. I couldn’t paint to save myself.. could I? After a year of his cajoling and convincing, I finally gave in – and instantly discovered a passion. My early attempts weren’t the best, but I read and researched and practiced – I got better at it, and even won a prize or two for my efforts!
One of the first things I realised is that art can be found in many mediums. ‘Craft’ can be a form of ‘art’. So the ability to knit and sew and embroider and crochet can all be artistic talents. Gosh, huh, who would have thunk?
The second thing is that artists can be made as well as born. Painting and drawing (and all those crafty pursuits) are skills that you can learn! I amazed myself when I went from being a bad stick figure drawer, to being able to freehand draw realistic three dimensional pictures of jewellery in just a few lessons!
The third thing is that practice makes perfect. Sure, we all know those three year olds with the freakish ability to pick up a pencil and make masterpieces – but for those of us without that fortune, just keep trying, keep experimenting. It will come!
And finally – art is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve seen some expensive ‘masterpieces’ that anyone with a sponge and some poster paint could have slapped together – and some divine works of art that go practically unrecognised. Each to their own – just have the courage to appreciate (and do) what you really like!
And if you’d like to see more of my Warhammer painting efforts from this previous life, you can visit my ‘Cool Mini or Not’ gallery. There are some TOTALLY awesome artists there if you browse a bit further afield!
